in response to the idea of wishing someone luck

I don't like wishing people luck when it comes to things that require skill. I thought about it and have this to say:

"There is luck when creating, I know that. I try to avoid framing it as such, however, as it takes the power out of us and places it on a pedestal which we can’t reach. Going back to that place where we inhale divine breath of inspiration requires often either ecstatic exercise, whereby we are forced to gulp it down as quickly as it comes, gasping and rattling form the exertion, or to breath slowly, regularly, and intentionally, allowing the power to infuse and suffuse within us.

The former can be a more powerful and profound experience, but it requires us to simply wait to be hit in the head with the anvil and observe the constellations that appear before our eyes and can often lead to the mistaken idea that it was the anvil – the outside force – that acted, Newtonian, upon us. This can lead to drug addiction and superstitious habits of magic pens, notebooks, places, and typewriters.

The latter requires much more cultivation and discipline and can appear to the uninitiated as a boring and uninspired way to create. It is true that the elixir that comes from this alchemy is oftentimes less potent than its ecstatic counterpart, due to its carefully crafted nature, but it takes form and shape through force of will and intensity of purpose that comes from within.

The truth is that both of these endeavors arise from our own mind, as does the world and we have to be both able to be disciplined and ecstatic so as to carefully craft both the pure form of the creative element and the untamed elements, then take these reagents and allow them, with proper heating and cooling in a sacred vessel, to react to each other in unexpectedly formulaic, arcanely mundane ways.

Inspiration is one part inhalation, one part exhalation, one part exaltation, and the rest is probably hard work, but mostly just happy accidents."